by Nancy Warren
The two men began heading back into the house through an inside door so Ben was able to remain in his spot undetected. He wasn’t particularly interested in eavesdropping, but he felt that everyone would be embarrassed if he made his presence known, so he took the easy route and stood silent. As the two men left he heard Duncan say, with a hint of sarcasm, “I think you’ve got enough expenses on your hands. Don’t worry, Millicent and I will take care of the wedding costs. We never had a daughter. Ashley’s as close as we’ll ever come. We’re happy to help her get started in life.” Then his lofty tone changed to one of contempt. “And God knows her mother hasn’t got two cents to rub together.”
“And the father?” Charles Van Hoffendam asked after a moment.
“Not in the picture,” he answered shortly.
He heard the door open to the main house and then close behind the two men, and he heard no more.
Wow. That had been an interesting conversation. He wasn’t completely sure what he’d overheard, but the entire content of it made him uneasy. What did Judge Bailey have to do with anything? The judge was an old family friend of the Carnarvons, and of his family’s, too. He’d assumed he’d see the man here tonight, had looked forward to it in the way he enjoyed seeing his parents’ friends in small doses.
Duncan Carnarvon and the man he assumed was Eric Van Hoffendam’s father had talked as though this wedding was a business deal. They’d even mentioned the word profit, as well as keeping something out of the media. As a current media target himself, that was something he’d love to be able to do.
His mind was racing as he reversed his steps and exited the conservatory the same way he’d come in. He took a detour, returning from the direction of the beach so if anyone saw him they’d never guess where he’d been.
The few minutes’ walk allowed him to process the extraordinary chat between the two men. Naturally, since he was a storyteller, he began to weave possibilities. Most of which were completely preposterous, which was typical of real life. So many things that happened in life would never sell as a screenplay since they were too improbable. Sometimes he felt that movies were closer to reality than reality was.
As he strode up the path that led by the beach, he passed in front of the cottage where Ashley and her mother lived. He was thrown back in time for a second, remembering how, when he was walking down to the beach to surf, he had to pass what was clearly her bedroom. He soon discovered she was on the watch for him, for no sooner would he pass her window than he’d hear the sound of a sash window being dragged open. Next thing he knew, she’d be scrambling to catch up, trying to act cool, sauntering down to the beach as though it were coincidence that they were going to the water at the same time.
Maybe it was the memory of that achingly vulnerable young girl and her crush on him, but he felt a genuine fondness for her. Sure, she was grown up now, and certainly seemed as though she could handle herself and was long over her feelings for him. But he’d still look out for her if he could. Besides, his curiosity was whetted. Not only to find out whether Judge Bailey was at the party tonight, but he was now also determined to spend a few minutes chatting with the bridegroom.
When he drew close to the big house, he scanned the area looking for the judge, but it was impossible to pick one person out. There were groups of people standing in clusters outside, guests streaming in and out of the open doors. He could spend all night looking and never find the object of his search.
He soon spotted Millicent and knew she’d save him the trouble. He walked up to her, “What a great party,” he said.
She gave him a practiced hostess smile. “I’m so glad you’re enjoying it. Have you had something to eat? There’s a full spread laid out in the dining room.”
“Great. I was hoping to see Judge Bailey. I’m sure he’s here, being as he’s such an old family friend, but I can’t find him.”
She dropped her hostess mask for a second. “I absolutely expected him to come. He’s Ted’s godfather, practically part of the family. But he sent his regrets. Apparently, a weekend trip with his wife to New York was more important.”
“Maybe there’s a ballet or something. You know they never miss the premieres.”
“Well, if there is, this is the first I’ve heard of it.” Then she switched back into hostess mode. “Let me introduce you to a few people. Not that we socialize with any movie people, but you never know when connections will come in handy.”
“That’s really nice of you,” he said, already taking a step backward, “but I’m keeping a low profile. I only dropped by to wish Ashley well and say hello to you and Duncan.”
“That’s so nice of you. And how are your parents doing?”
“Great, I talked with mother yesterday. They’re in Paris but heading to Italy, and then thinking of spending a few days in Prague before they come home.”
“Wonderful. Give her my love next time you talk to her.”
“I will. And now, I think I’ll check out that buffet.”
He headed inside and found his way to the dining room. As he’d suspected, the long table was loaded with food and uniformed caterers served everything from wafer thin smoked salmon to slices of beef, salads, and little tiny things that looked too fancy to eat. He loaded his plate, since he had been more interested in writing than in cooking for himself recently, and he spent a few minutes talking to a hot redhead who was as happy to flirt with him as he was to flirt with her. Not that anything could come of it, he reminded himself. Lester had been pretty clear. No girls for poor Ben. Not until Vanessa had some new victim on the line.
After he’d polished off a second plate of amazing food, he stopped by the bar, thinking he’d enjoy a scotch before calling it a night and heading back to his computer and the scene that wouldn’t come together for him.
A group of young guys around Ashley’s age congregated around the bar, joking and acting like fools. He’d probably been that much of a tool himself half a decade ago, but he hoped not.
The center of the group was a blond-haired dude with a stupid grin on his face and heavy-lidded eyes, possibly from drink.
“Can’t believe you’re getting shackled, man,” another semi-drunk guy said to the blond fellow. His interest sharpened. This must be the famous Eric.
“I know.”
“You knock her up or something?”
He shook his head, leaning back against a tree as though he were posing for a menswear ad.
“It’s not one of your jokes, is it?” the guy glanced around and a grin spread over his face. “’Cause it would be a good one. Having the Carnarvons lay on this spread and be like, hey, punked, only kidding.”
Ben felt heat start to rise up the back of his neck. Ashley Carnarvon was ten times better than any of these pricks currently trying to figure out why some self-satisfied little piss-ant might want to marry her.
“Ashley’s a great girl,” Eric said. “It’s not a joke.”
“Anyway, I don’t know how you’re going to top the last prank.”
Those lazy eyes opened fully and Ben stepped forward to order his scotch as though he hadn’t been eavesdropping, which was becoming a bad habit tonight.
Eric glanced at him briefly, then said, “Toad, I need to talk to you. Let’s go inside and find a quiet spot. You too, Slade.”
The two chosen ones trotted behind the guy he was pretty sure was Eric Van Hoffendam. They’d left one guy behind and Ben saw him looking after the retreating trio. He looked a little younger than the others. If he was a dog, his tail would be drooping.
The bartender served up his scotch in a heavy tumbler. No plastic glasses at this outdoor party. He sidled up to the lost pup. “That Eric’s quite the practical joker, huh?” he asked.
A low chuckle answered him. “Oh, yeah. He’s famous for them. And most of the time you never see them coming.”
He sipped his drink. Just two guys hanging out, shooting the breeze. “He ever get you?”
“Not really, but one time
he got my older brother Todd. That’s the guy he calls Toad. He talked Toad and Slade and their other buddies into streaking during the school principal’s opening address at high school their senior year. He totally acted like he was going to do it too, so they all ran naked in front of the principal while Eric filmed them.”
“So, they got busted and he got away with it?” What a prince.
“Naah, he totally admitted it. They all got suspended for two days. Oh, and there was another time when he put vodka in all the water bottles for the football team. Every one of them. Course, these guys gulped half the bottle down before they realized.”
Ben pretended to be amused. “So, I guess your team won, huh?”
“No, see, that’s what’s so great about his pranks. He put the vodka in both teams’ water bottles. He didn’t care who won, he just wanted to watch them play loaded. Funniest thing you’ve ever seen. It’s probably still on YouTube.”
“So, you think he got engaged to the Carnarvon girl as a joke?”
He shook his head. “Only my brother would think that, because he’s stupid. There’s nothing funny about getting engaged to someone for a joke. That’s just mean.”
“And his jokes aren’t mean?”
“Not usually. Mainly he does things when he’s bored.”
“He do anything really good recently?”
Again, Toad’s younger brother shook his head. “I don’t know. I think something happened a couple of weeks ago, but Toad was so hung over the next day he couldn’t even talk. Then I went back to college.”
They chatted for a few minutes about the kid’s school and then he excused himself to go talk to someone else.
He circulated, chatting more than he’d expected to, and enjoying himself a lot more than he’d imagined he would. But all the time his mind was whirring. He tried to keep one eye on Ashley and one on her fiancé. What he noted was that he barely saw them together. Hardly the most encouraging sign in a newly engaged pair at the party celebrating their engagement.
She wasn’t staring wistfully after Eric, either. Not like that inseparable pair, was it Donovan and Rylie? Kylie? Something like that. When Donovan went to the bathroom, Rylie/Kylie stared after him until he returned to clasp her hand in his once more.
Ashley seemed perfectly happy hanging out with her girlfriends, mingling with whoever all these people were. Showing off a ring that to his eye was the diamond ring equivalent of beige. Who would choose the world’s most ubiquitous style of engagement ring for a woman whose charm was her quirkiness?
Were they trying to turn her into one of them?
He gazed at her, in the dress that was way too conservative and the ring that was way too conservative and had to wonder. Was she going to let them?
He got a chance to see more of the groom when Duncan called everyone together so he could propose a toast. “Eric?” he called out in his commanding, booming tones. “Ashley?” He glanced around and plastered a big grin on his face. “Come on over here, kids.”
Ashley arrived first, looking a little embarrassed but smiling at the assembled guests as though being called out to listen to Duncan drone on was the highlight of her evening.
Eric von Hoffendam arrived almost a minute later, shuffling up, with his shoulders slumped, looking more like an overgrown kid who was in trouble than a man celebrating his engagement to the love of his life. He gazed around at the assembled crowd, all smiling and nodding at him and Ashley, and, as though it was an afterthought put an arm around her.
Duncan Carnarvon made a speech. There was nothing unusual about this; Duncan Carnarvon was wont to give speeches and Ben had heard plenty of them. He gave them at the office and at fundraisers and the odd political event. He talked about his niece and how he’d known her since she was a child, watched her grow into a lovely young woman, blah blah blah, and then said how very happy he was that she had found her partner. He then indulged his captive audience in the story of how he had met his wife Millicent and how lucky he was, and that he hoped Ashley and Eric would be as happy as Duncan and Millicent had been all these years. And then, finally, he proposed a toast to the engaged couple.
Ben raised his glass along with everyone else, and while they politely chorused, “To the engaged couple,” he looked at Ashley and mumbled, “What the hell are you thinking?”
He didn’t stay much longer after that. He had work to do.
***
In the last few weeks, since his life had become a joke and Vanessa Moore came up with a new punch line every time he thought the laughter had ended, Ben had discovered that writing a really violent, morally ambivalent crime drama was very good therapy. And in this therapy, he got paid.
But when he got back to the pool house, strangely he could not focus. He flipped on his computer but the scenes wouldn’t take shape. He’d only had two drinks, so it wasn’t alcohol messing with his mind. It was something else. Through the open louvers he could hear the party still going on, though he could tell that it was winding down.
He wasn’t a smoker, but he allowed himself a rare cigar. Tonight, he felt as though he could use his occasional indulgence. He headed outside and sat on one of the lounge chairs at the edge of the pool. He liked it here, quiet and out of the way. The pool sparkled like a blue topaz that some giantess might wear on her hand. Even though the engagement party was on the same property, it seemed miles away. The twinkling lights and bursts of laughter could be coming from another planet. He puffed his cigar and settled back, gazing up into the blue, blue heavens. And then it hit him. The reason he had this uncomfortable feeling in his gut had nothing to do with whatever secrets Duncan Carnarvon and Charles Van Hoffendam had been swapping. His unease was about Ashley’s choice of husband. He hadn’t disliked Eric, but he hadn’t liked him either. Most of all, he didn’t like him with Ashley. He’d seemed dismissive of her, too busy laughing with his friends and drinking more than was good for him to pay attention to the woman he was going to marry. If he was this useless a partner at his engagement party, what kind of a husband was he going to be?
Not that it was any of Ben’s business. He was simply an observer, a storyteller.
Chapter Nine
ASHLEY MIGHT LOVE HER SECRET VISION of herself as a rebel, but she had grown up on the Carnarvon estate and her social manners were as ingrained as her DNA. She circulated, she made nice. But inside she grew increasingly irked that Eric was spending more time with his buddies than he was with her. As the night progressed, she went from irked to downright pissed. And speaking of pissed, she had a feeling, as the hour closed in on midnight, that if her husband-to-be weren’t leaning against the trunk of the tree outside on the big patio where the bar was set up, he’d fall flat on his face.
She walked over to where Eric was hunkered down with his buddies and he didn’t look as though he was budging anytime soon. “Hi,” she said.
He turned to look at her lazily. “Ash, hey. Come have a drink.”
His friend Toad piped up, “Hey, Ash. Great party.”
“Thanks.”
She pinned a tight smile to her face. “Eric? Can I talk to you for a sec?”
“Yeah, sure.”
She waited but he remained where he was. As though the tree might fall down if he didn’t hold it up. His gaze was fixed on her face, waiting for her to speak. “Um, I meant privately.”
“Oh. Okay.” He pushed away from the tree and after a small wobble, managed to walk over to where she was. She took a few more steps so they had relative privacy.
He came closer, ran a finger under the scoop of pearls. “So, you coming over to my place later?”
“I was thinking maybe we’d leave together.”
“But my friends are all here.”
“This is our engagement party.” She voiced each word slowly so they’d sink in.
“Yeah, so?”
“So, maybe you should spend some more time with me. I’ve been totally humiliated tonight. You spent more time with your hooligan fr
iends than with me.”
He blinked, as though she’d attacked him for no reason. “But I always hang out with my friends. And you hang out with yours. That’s how it works. Then we hook up later.”
How could he be so dense? “But we’re engaged.”
“So?”
“So, you’re not acting like a fiancé.”
He looked down his Van Hoffendam nose at her, a nose that had been bred over generations for looking down from. “Which is weird, since you’re already acting like a nagging wife.”
Then he turned away and swaggered back to his friends. She stood there, feeling stunned and foolish, and heard a burst of hearty male laughter. She had no idea what they were laughing at but she had a deep suspicion Eric had made some crack about her, marriage, women, or a combination of all those things.
She stood where she was for a few more minutes and then decided that if Eric didn’t want to leave with her, she’d leave by herself. And she’d walk herself all the way home, to the cottage. Eric could go screw himself.
She found Grace and discreetly returned the pearls to their rightful owner. “Thank you for lending them to me.”
Grace patted her cheek fondly. “They looked lovely with that dress. And one day, these will belong to you anyway.”
Ashley smiled and tried to look delighted, though in fact she felt as though the name choker was an apt one. No matter how she tried to rearrange the marble-sized pearls, there had always been one poking her in the larynx.
Melody was hunkered down in the big dining room with a group of her own friends, chowing down on the remains of that sumptuous meal. Uncle Duncan was holding forth with his cronies and a bottle of scotch she suspected was both very old and very expensive. Everyone, in fact, seemed to be having more fun than she was.
But, the moon was full, the grounds were pretty and the smell of night blooming jasmine permeated the air. Her skin began to tingle. Her steps led her almost without her own volition to the swimming pool. She hadn’t enjoyed a midnight swim in a while. Ben had left the party early, and with luck he was sound asleep in bed so she could indulge herself. She could throw off the clothes that didn’t feel like hers and dive into the pool. She slipped off her silver heels as she drew closer and walked barefoot to the edge of the pool. She stared into its welcoming depth and the tingle on her skin was interrupted by a prickle of awareness.
